Tag Archives: Georgia

Post navigation

Every day, GenealogyBank is working hard to digitize more U.S. newspapers and obituaries, expanding our burgeoning collection to give you the largest newspaper archives for family history research available online from the 1600s up to today. We’ve just added 26 million more U.S. genealogy records, vastly increasing our news coverage from coast to coast!

Here are some of the details about our most recent U.S. newspaper additions:

A total of 49 newspaper titles from 19 U.S. states

21 of these titles are newspapers added to GenealogyBank for the first time

Newspaper titles marked with an asterisk (*)are new to our online archives

We’ve shown the newspaper issue date ranges so that you can determine if the newly added content is relevant to your personal genealogy research

You can either print or create a PDF version of this Blog post by simply clicking on the green “Print/PDF” button below. The PDF version makes it easy to save this post onto your desktop or portable device for quick reference—all the newspaper links will be live.

Every day, GenealogyBank is working hard to digitize more U.S. newspapers and obituaries, expanding our burgeoning collection to give you the largest newspaper archives for family history research available online from the 1600s up to today. We’re getting off to a great start this 2015, just completing the addition of 8 million more U.S. genealogy records, vastly increasing our content coverage from coast to coast!

Here are some of the details about our most recent U.S. newspaper additions:

A total of 52 newspaper titles from 18 U.S. states

26 of these titles are newspapers added to GenealogyBank for the first time

Newspaper titles marked with an asterisk (*)are new to our online archives

We’ve shown the newspaper issue date ranges so that you can determine if the newly added content is relevant to your personal genealogy research

Every day, GenealogyBank is working hard to digitize more newspapers and obituaries, expanding our collection to give you the largest newspaper archives for family history research available online. We just completed adding 3 million more U.S. genealogy records, vastly increasing our content coverage from coast to coast!

Here are some of the details about our most recent U.S. newspaper additions:

A total of 39 newspaper titles from 20 U.S. states

13 of these titles are newspapers added to GenealogyBank for the first time

Newspaper titles marked with an asterisk (*)are new to our online archives

We’ve shown the newspaper issue date ranges so that you can determine if the newly added content is relevant to your personal genealogy research

Every day, GenealogyBank is working hard to digitize more newspapers and obituaries, expanding our extensive historical collections to give you the largest newspaper archives for family history research available online. We just completed adding 8 million more U.S. genealogy records, vastly increasing our content coverage from U.S. coast to coast!

Here are some of the details about our most recent U.S. newspaper additions:

A total of 35 newspaper titles from 20 U.S. states

17 of these titles are newspapers added to GenealogyBank for the first time

Newspaper titles marked with an asterisk (*)are new to our online archives

We’ve shown the newspaper issue date ranges so that you can determine if the newly added content is relevant to your personal genealogy research

Every day, GenealogyBank is working hard to digitize more newspapers and obituaries, rapidly expanding our content to give you the most comprehensive newspaper archives and largest obituary collection for family history research available online. We just completed adding 6 million more U.S. genealogy records, vastly increasing our content coverage from coast to coast!

Here are some of the details about our most recent U.S. newspaper additions:

A total of 42 newspaper titles from 19 U.S. states

21 of these titles are newspapers added to GenealogyBank for the first time

Newspaper titles marked with an asterisk (*)are new to our online archives

We’ve shown the newspaper issue date ranges so that you can determine if the newly added content is relevant to your personal genealogy research

Every day, GenealogyBank is working hard to digitize more newspapers and obituaries, expanding our collection to give you the largest newspaper archives for family history research available anywhere online. We just completed adding 7 million more U.S. genealogy records, vastly increasing our content coverage from U.S. coast to coast!

Here are some of the details about our most recent U.S. newspaper additions:

A total of 52 newspaper titles from 21 U.S. states

19 of these titles are newspapers added to GenealogyBank for the first time

Newspaper titles marked with an asterisk (*)are new to our online archives

We’ve shown the newspaper issue date ranges so that you can determine if the newly added content is relevant to your personal genealogy research

Every day, GenealogyBank is working hard to digitize more U.S. newspapers and obituaries, expanding our online archives to give you the largest newspaper archives for family history research available on the web. We just completed adding 12 million more newspaper articles to the online archives, vastly increasing our news coverage of life in America from coast to coast!

Here are some of the details about our most recent U.S. newspaper additions:

A total of 73 newspaper titles from 24 U.S. states

45 of these titles are newspapers added to GenealogyBank for the first time

Newspaper titles marked with an asterisk (*)are new to our online archives

We’ve shown the newspaper issue date ranges so that you can determine if the newly added content is relevant to your personal genealogy research

You can either print or create a PDF version of this Blog post by simply clicking on the green “Print/PDF” button below. The PDF version makes it easy to save this post on your desktop or portable device for quick reference—all the links will be live.

Every day, GenealogyBank is working hard to digitize more U.S. newspapers and obituaries, expanding our online archives to give you the largest newspaper archives for family history research available on the web. We just completed adding 5 million more newspaper articles to the online archives, vastly increasing our news coverage of life in America from coast to coast!

Here are some of the details about our most recent U.S. newspaper additions:

A total of 51 newspaper titles from 22 U.S. states, with many newspaper additions from Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania

25 of these titles are newspapers added to GenealogyBank for the first time

Newspaper titles marked with an asterisk (*)are new to our online archives. Note that many of these totally new archive additions are German American newspapers.

We’ve shown the newspaper issue date ranges so that you can determine if the newly added content is relevant to your personal genealogy research. Note that some of these newly added newspapers date back to the mid-1800s.

Introduction: Scott Phillips is a genealogical historian and owner of Onward To Our Past® genealogy services. In this guest blog post, Scott tells the story of how a fellow genealogists used old newspapers to finally break through her family history brick wall.

Here on the GenealogyBank blog, I recently wrote an article titled Ah-Ha! Moment: GenealogyBank Member’s Favorite Family Find. At the end of my article I asked readers to please share their own “Ah-Ha!” moments from their genealogy and family history work. I then learned about “Cowfordlady’s” genealogy “Ah-Ha!” moment, which had occurred earlier that same day.

GenealogyBank member Cowfordlady kindly shared her genealogy success story with us so that we could share it with all of you. It is a story about breaking through a genealogy brick wall similar to those we each encounter in our own family history work.

Cowfordlady had been searching for some clues to two of her ancestors who were missing from the 1940 U.S. Census, so she turned to GenealogyBank’s online Historical Newspaper Archives in the hope of perhaps finding an obituary. What she found was indeed an “Ah-Ha!” moment of epic proportions. She overcame the challenges of assumed names, misspellings, cross-country movements, 15 missing years, murder, and more!

She had been unable to find information about her ancestors Flossie Sula (mother) and Louise (daughter) Cothern. Cowfordlady knew that Flossie Sula had married David William Cothern, and Louise was their only child. He died in 1930.

Cowfordlady knew only a few details about her ancestors’ lives after David died. As she tells it:

Flossie was a widow and about age 33 when she and Louise left West Green (Coffee County), Georgia, in/about 1931; Louise was about age 9 then.

After that, her ancestors’ trail turned cold, and they were not listed in the 1940 Census.

Not able to find any information about her ancestors in government records, Cowfordlady turned to GenealogyBank’s newspapers. She tried several searches using variations of her ancestors’ surname—and one such variation (“Cothren”) turned up an article that was the key to unlocking this genealogy puzzle.

It was a front-page story from a 1946 Louisiana newspaper that began to unravel the mystery. The discovery was a chilling one.

Times-Picayune (New Orleans, Louisiana), 19 November 1946, page 1

The key was this paragraph, revealing that the unfortunate “Mrs. Henderson” involved in this tragic murder story was in reality Cowfordlady’s missing ancestor, Flossie Sula Cothern (spelled “Cothren” in the article).

Times-Picayune (New Orleans, Louisiana), 19 November 1946, page 9

Along with finally solving the mystery of her missing ancestors, this newspaper article had the added bonus of providing a photograph of Flossie Sula Cothern.

Times-Picayune (New Orleans, Louisiana), 19 November 1946, page 9

Flossie Sula and Louise Cothern had left Georgia with a father and son who lived near them: Emmett Bennett and his son Leroy. The four of them lived as a family for 15 years under the assumed name of Henderson until Emmett (in the company of Leroy) murdered Louise in 1946 in New Orleans while Flossie was at work.

Cowfordlady’s discoveries continued when she found another 1946 Louisiana newspaper article. It seems that while on the lam from the law, the apparent murderer of Louise possibly committed suicide by allowing himself to be hit by an express train.

Advocate (Baton Rouge, Louisiana), 22 November 1946, page 1

But that was not the end of this story!

There is a follow-up in this 1946 Georgia newspaper article. It seems that the second suspect in this murder case, Leroy Bennett ( “Henderson”) had changed his mind about accepting extradition to Louisiana from Georgia—and his family then swore out a warrant against the detectives for kidnapping!

Augusta Chronicle (Augusta, Georgia), 23 November 1946, page 1

While the kidnapping charge was dismissed, the case carried on—as reported in this 1946 Louisiana newspaper article. While much of this article details the legal haggling over extradition and habeas corpus, there was this interesting sentence that reads:

Coffee County Sheriff R. C. Relihan said today that a mental health hearing for the young Bennett this week disclosed him to be mentally incompetent. He was placed in the custody of an uncle and attorneys.

As you can see, Cowfordlady went from near-zero information to uncovering an amazing story about her missing ancestors. Her experience shows the value of newspapers for family history research; they provide the stories that vital statistics, with all their names and dates, don’t tell.

And her technique of searching on variations of her ancestors’ name—and her dogged persistence—provide good lessons for us all!

There may be nothing finer in genealogy than when we see success such as Cowfordlady’s. What has your best genealogy success story been?

Long-established American families have family trees that stretch back to the Colonial Era in the 17th and 18th centuries, before the United States became an independent country. Finding vital statistics and other genealogical information about these early Colonial ancestors from that time period can be difficult, as some vital records simply were not officially kept before and during the 1700s, or have been destroyed through war, accident or the passage of time.

Illustration: 1754 political cartoon by Benjamin Franklin urging the British Colonies in North America to join together to help the British win the French and Indian War (the segment labeled “N.E.” stands for the four New England colonies). Credit: U.S. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Fortunately, GenealogyBank offers a rich genealogy resource for family historians tracing their family trees back to American Colonial times: an online collection of 27 Colonial newspapers, providing obituaries, birth notices, marriage announcements, and personal stories to get to know your pioneering ancestors and the times they lived in better.

Discover a variety of historical genealogy records and news stories in these 27 Colonial newspapers, listed alphabetically by state and then city. Each historical newspaper title in this list is an active link that will take you directly to that paper’s search page, where you can begin researching for your Colonial ancestry by ancestors’ surnames, dates, keywords and more.

Download our printable PDF list of Colonial newspapers for easy access to our historical archives right from your local desktop. Click the newspaper titles to be taken directly to the search landing page for that publication. Just click on the list below to start your download.

Feel free to embed our list of 1700s newspapers on your website or blog using the code below. Simply cut, paste and presto! You can easily share this fantastic collection for early American ancestry research with your visitors.